


bleed

by bokutoma



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Blood, Character Study, Competition, Other, Past Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Pre-Relationship, in my heart they're also future but. it's not explicit. you could read it either way, it can be both lol, marked other because it really doesn't feel explicitly thanzag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 18:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: Zagreus has seen so little and done even less, but that's not a reason to stop trying.
Relationships: Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	bleed

How many times had Zagreus's own blood spilled before he had ever left the House of Hades of his own free will? _Countless,_ a mortal might say, but then, Zagreus's life has not exactly taken a mortal shape.

The answer, as he knows it to be, is so very, painfully few.

Ichor does not run red, he knows; he has seen it flecked against Meg's skin, both as a matter of course in her work and as something sacred, a bond they had both worked at fraying, no matter what their mouths or their intentions might have said. He has seen it on the mouth of Hypnos after a particularly bad incident involving the head chef and Cerberus's old chew toy. He has even seen it in his dreams, on those few occasions where he has slept deeply enough to have them, bronzed and iron-strong gods waging wars until that which he can only barely comprehend as the sky runs golden with it.

He has never seen it on his father - not yet, he thinks - but he knows it flows thickly there as well.

But for Zagreus, though he is a god, he has no ichor. Only blood.

Achilles had been a careful and conscientious instructor, of course. Rare had been the occasion for cuts to open and well with the thickness of what laid beneath, and when it had, Achilles had been sorry for it. Too sorry, if one were to ask either the lord of the House or his son, but for very different reasons indeed.

It is not quite that he likes it, though pain has never quite reached him in the way that it is supposed to, or that he thinks blood is lovely. It's only that it calls to him, fuels him, and when it drips into his eyes and mats his clothes against his skin, he feels alive in a way that immortality hadn't managed at any point before this. It fascinates him, enthralls him, and he thinks that this is why he and Ares get along so well. Their enjoyment may differ significantly, but to bathe in the evidence of hard work and struggle, to be the victor despite this... There is no better feeling.

Or at least, there is no better feeling when paired with the thrill of competition. The evidence of his brutal fight with Meg may be lost under the hot splash of his own blood and the ghostly remnants of a hundred shades, but the grin their fights give him still hasn't faded, and when he enters the next chamber in Elysium, it is Than who waits for him once again.

"You're late, Zagreus," he says, the dry rasp of his voice turned soft by the quirk of his lips - _mouth_ \- and something deep within Zagreus basks in the pleasurable feeling it gives him.

"Sorry," he says, and is he a little breathless? Must be the loss of blood. "Meg really did a number on me."

Something shutters in Than's gaze, and Zagreus licks his lips nervously. He never knows what to do when Thanatos gets like this, so his best bet is to wait it out...

And there it is. He's... Well, he's not quite smiling, but he's doing that close approximation again, and he'll take it. 

"I suppose I'll have to do the same." 

Blood and darkness, they really need to turn down the heat in Elysium.

It's a close call, all things considered. There are a thousand little dirty plays between them: Zagreus kills an Exalted Than had marked for death; Thanatos returns the favor with a Splitter that had been aiming for his back. In the end, though, it is Zagreus who is victorious, and even with a Brightsword wound oozing thickly, he still tilts his head back and lets out a crow of victory.

"Alright, alright. You've made your point." Than is grumbling, of course, because he always is, but there is no hesitation in giving the reward. He's painfully _good,_ for a god. "I hope Theseus skewers you."

But Zagreus is too distracted to rise to that bait. He'd kept close to Thanatos during the fight, mostly by accident, but it's clear that that's had some consequences - his cheek is streaked with Zagreus's own blood. It's... almost pretty there, striking against the iron of his skin, and Zagreus himself is struck by how little he knows in comparison to Thanatos, who has seen the rise and fall of _empires,_ if he is to be believed.

And he is. Always.

"Where did you go, Zag?" Than's voice isn't gentle, but it's close enough to it, and Zagreus smiles as his knees weaken, and he wipes the blood splatter from Thanatos's cheek, watches his breath hitch in sync with his own.

"Just seeing if you'd notice."

Thanatos makes a noise like he's not sure whether to question him or ignore him, then does what he's always done best: disappear.

And Zagreus, hands muddied with the red slickness of his own blood, is ready to do it all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @kingblaiddyd


End file.
